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November 1, 2000
SIOUX FALLS - Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, who plays a major role in promoting international exchange and understanding of Middle Eastern politics, Arab-Western relations, and current global issues throughout the world, is the next speaker in the Boe Forum on Public Affairs at Augustana College.
Queen Noor's appearance at 7:00 p.m. on May 9, 2001, in the Elmen Center, is sponsored by the Center for Western Studies at Augustana. She will address current events, and globalization and its effect on women and children.
Queen Noor is the seventh speaker in the Boe Forum, a lecture program launched in 1995 with a gift generated by the estates of the late Governor Nils Boe and his sister, Borghild Boe, assisted by gifts from Dr. Lois Hyslop, professor emerita of Penn State University.
Retired General Colin Powell was the first speaker in the series. He was followed by President George Bush, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev, British Prime Minister John Major, Mrs. Barbara Bush, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby on August 23, 1951. She attended schools in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Concord Academy in Massachusetts, before entering Princeton University in its first co-educational freshman class.
She graduated from Princeton in 1974 with a degree in architecture and urban planning. She participated in several international urban planning and design projects in Australia, Iran, the United States and Jordan. In 1976 she traveled throughout the Arab world to research aviation training facilities for the preparation of a master plan for an Arab Air University to be established in Jordan. Subsequently, she joined Royal Jordanian Airline as director of planning and design projects.
She married the late King Hussein of Jordan on June 15, 1978.
In 1979, Queen Noor chaired the National Committee for the International Year of the Child and actively launched a national immunization campaign, children's parks and literature programs, and an initiative to establish Jordan's first children's hospital.
In Jordan, Queen Noor initiates, directs and sponsors projects and activities which respond to specific national needs in the areas of mother and child health care, education, women's development, environmental protection, culture, and public architecture and planning. She is actively involved with several international and United Nations organizations that address global challenges in these fields.
The Queen is the President of the United World Colleges, a network of ten equal-opportunity international colleges around the world, which foster cross-cultural understanding and global peace.
Queen Noor speaks Arabic, English and French. She enjoys skiing, water skiing, tennis, sailing, horseback riding, reading, gardening, and photography.
Queen Noor's presentation at Augustana is free and open to the public. Tickets are required for admission and will be available at the Center for Western Studies box officeÑin person or by phoneÑbetween 11:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 11, and Thursday, April 12, 2001.
Tickets are limited to two per couple and may be requested by mail, using a self-addressed and stamped envelope. Tickets will be mailed on Thursday, April 5, 2001. For information call 274-4008 or 274-4590.